Readings for "Distance Learning"

       One concept mentioned in several of the articles concerned the idea of a "social community", or a network through which both educators and students can connect with one another. Specifically, such social communities usually take the form of pages like Facebook, Twitter, etc., or may be a Wiki for a classroom (or something related). The benefit of such communication sites is two-fold: 1) the educator is never out of touch with students, and can assist them at virtually any time during an assignment, and 2) students feel much less of a burden if they can easily converse with other students about an assignment. Nothing is more frustrating for a student than to leave class with a head bursting with ideas, only to come home and have all the ideas jumble together and become incoherent. Having a social community in place does much to ensure that this student will not simply quit the project out of frustration. Rather, he/she will confer with other students and, hopefully, figure out a solution to the problem. This, in my mind, is the primary beneficial function of social communities as used through distance learning.

       In the Alford article, I particularlyliked the professed method of "active learning". Distance education is absolutely dependent on active learning: students must garner the ability to help themselves both inside and outside the classroom. The suggestions of the article--"read, listen and watch the course materials more than once...take notes...interact with instructor and classmates...become involved in disucssing and defining..." (4)--point towards an educational collaboration that would be very difficult to render without the aid of distance education. The greatest danger in distance learning, it seems to me, is the idea of moving too fast through different educational media devices. According to Valentine, instructors "need to realize that the technician is an integral part of the experience of distance learning" (8), and therefore the teacher-as-technician must take precedence in the educational atmosphere. However, I believe teachers must also remain cognizant of older methods of student-teacher interaction that are not necessarily outdated. Of course, multimedia presentations and Wikis are now very useful for our classrooms, but, then again, sometimes a class needs a good old fashioned debate about a reading assignment. No one is advocating a return to candlelit symposiums, but only keep in mind that each new tool used in distance learning should be examined for efficacy, not merely novelty.